Day Twenty-six--Hot Dogs

It's Mother's Day today. Tim asked me if I wanted to go out anywhere special for dinner and I said No. I'm happy with cooking at home these days. We went with simple for dinner tonight. I've been fighting a head cold or a sinus infection for a couple of days and haven't had as much energy or ambition so easy was good for me.

Hot dogs and Couscous salad

We love the all beef hot dogs from our friends. They are so good. I had pretty much given up on eating hot dogs because I hated the nitrate flavor of them. I hated how I would burp them for two to three hours afterwards. These hot dogs don't do any of that. I made a big batch of coleslaw to have with it. Connor and I love slaw dogs. I also got creative tonight. I have a container of Israeli couscous in the cupboard. I made a quick little salad with it. I basically dug in the fridge to see what I had for leftovers in veg. I used a red onion, some tomato, some roasted red pepper, and some kalamata olives. I chopped that all up and then mixed it in the cooked couscous and then made a simple dressing of olive oil, red wine vinegar and a bit of English mustard. It was delicious!!

Yesterday I had decided that we were going to try and live off what was in our cupboards and freezer this week. I did go to the dairy yesterday to get our fresh milk and eggs and then went to Wegmans today for what few things I needed. Two things I noticed while shopping. First of all, Wegmans had ears of corn on the cob already set out and selling four for a dollar. Where is corn in season right now? Last year I had made the mistake of getting corn early because we all love corn on the cob, but it had no flavor. I will not make that mistake this year. Corn is a summer food and I will wait until it's ready and I know it will taste so much better. The second thing I noticed was that when I shop in season and only have to get a few basic things, my grocery bill goes from 220 dollars to 36 dollars. What a treat. I did get bananas because Tim was begging me for some. He said that he knew that they weren't local but he was craving some. Normally, Tim is not a huge fan of bananas so I knew he needed them. I only bought a couple of them though because no one else really likes them.

Yesterday at the library I picked up Real Food, What to Eat and Why. Wow. I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around it. The author is going along the same line of Michael Pollan in that we need to be eating real food. We need to be eating what our grandparents ate. We should not be eating anything that is processed. I get that. I'm working on getting most processed foods out of our house. She also talks about eating meat, dairy, and other things that I've had beaten into my head since I was young that are bad for me. I'm only a couple of chapters into the book and I know I'm going to have to do more research based on what she says about cholesterol and cancer. It basically goes against everything I learned when I read The China Study. It all boils down to eating as close to nature as possible. Meats should be from grass fed, free roaming animals. Butter is better for us than margarine. Yay. I love butter.

It's hard to know what is right. I think back to my grandmother though who lived on a farm. My dad was raised on the farm. We used to spend many a day roaming around on all of acreage. She lived to 94. She ate beef that was raised on her land. She ate pork and chickens that she raised on her land. She had huge gardens that she ate from and preserved to feed her family through the winter. I can remember her in the kitchen making fried chicken for us. I can remember going out and picking corn and then shucking the corn and feeding the greens to the cows. Those were the days. I really do see us in the next few years trying to find a little piece of land to farm. I know that I want to have some chickens for fresh eggs and who knows, I might even want a cow for fresh milk. It's funny what getting older does to your desires.

Well, that is enough rambling for now. I have boys waiting for me to play a game with them. Until tomorrow, happy cooking!

Day Three--Cheeseburgers

Tonight's meal was an easy one. Another dinner off the grill too. I love having warmer weather and the ability to cook outside. I was concerned about making coleslaw without a food processor. As you will remember mine broke yesterday. I grumbled about it and I worried how I would get the cabbage shredded enough to be good slaw. How did I end up getting my cabbage shredded? The good old fashioned way. A knife!

Who needs a food processor?

It made for a nice slaw. I made my own slaw sauce. It is delicious.

The burgers took me all of five minutes to mix up. I used organic grass fed beef that I got at Wegmans. It was a pretty good cost for a pound of beef. I think it was five dollars. Not too bad for 4 burgers. I suppose you could get 4 burgers at a fast food dive but the meat will be full of chemicals and drugs. Yuck. I mixed an egg, some bread crumbs, a half an onion and some cumin and chili powder in the meat and like I said Tim grilled them up nicely.

Super yummy burgers topped with swiss cheese.

It was such a lovely evening out that we all decided to eat outside. We enjoyed our burgers with some baked French fries and the coleslaw. Tim and I also enjoyed some Ithaca Brewery CascaZilla beer. The French fries were kind of an afterthought. I looked around and found some potatoes in the cupboard and sliced them up in my handy dandy slicer.

So, all in all, it was an easy dinner. Again three out of four of us liked it. Aidan didn't like the onions in the burger but we got him to eat half of it. That is a win for us. We are traveling tomorrow to Olean to hang out with my step mother-in-law. She's the best. I have my shopping list to take to Tops when we get there so we can continue our eating real food while we are there. Of course, we might have to sneak some Renna's pizza in for a lunch on Saturday. Renna's has the best pizza.